


when the cherry blossoms fade

by colderthancold



Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 04:46:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17697929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colderthancold/pseuds/colderthancold
Summary: A connection, a sudden déjà-vu. There’s someone out there, she's waiting for you.





	when the cherry blossoms fade

Those times when they thought it’d be okay. Those times when dreams came true just with the bat of an eye and a wish upon a star. Times when things were easy because you didn’t want them to be hard. Times when they played games no one would ever understand and climbed up all the trees they could climb because that was what they liked to do.

“Look, Chika-chan! Isn’t that Kobayashi-sensei?”

“Yeah, kinda looks like her!”

“Then— Chika-chan!”

Chika breaks her arm that summer. She twists her ankle and bruises her knees. She hates it. She sees all of her friends, all of the people she knows and all the strangers she has yet to meet swimming and running and having fun meanwhile she can do none of that stuff. Kanan and You stay there by her side, most of the time, however. She’s thankful to them because they are sacrificing part of their summer but at the same time she feels awfully guilty. She can’t do anything that summer. She can’t do anything at all.

So she stares through the window. Every now and then she breathes near it and tries to draw something with her fingers. It doesn’t work, but she tries her best. And that seems to be enough to her.

As she looks around her town she feels like the only kid who isn’t having fun that summer. She feels like the only kid with a broken arm, twisted ankle and bruised knees. She wonders if there is a kid anywhere in the world who hates that summer as well, and wishes they could both meet so they could hate summer together and eventually start loving it. That thought makes her smile, and she doesn’t know why, but she blushes a little.

In the end, she just hopes that if there is such kid, a kid that’s having a rough time that summer as well, they can both have a good time still.

(And there is.)

Sakurauchi Riko lives in a small apartment in the middle Tokyo, and Sakurauchi Riko dislikes summer very much. She prefers cold over hot under any circumstance and hates sweating and feeling so uncomfortable and honestly she’d rather go to school than burn alive inside her room.

She also has all of her fingers either bruised or broken. It has to do with a piano-related accident she wants to forget and will refuse to talk about. The thing is she hates that summer because she likes to do two things, mostly— read and play piano. And with hands like hers she can do just about neither. She is bored and can just stare through the window and sigh, dreaming of living another life. She wonders if she is the only kid wasting that summer, and if there is, she wishes they could meet. She wishes they’re a nice kid and that they like her and respect her and that they can be friends. That thought makes her smile a little. Sakurauchi Riko has no friends, and even though she normally gets sad when thinking about the fact that she feels and is all alone she feels different now. She feels as if she’s not by herself anymore.

(Which she isn’t.)

* * *

 

Chika is ridings someone’s bike. She’s standing on the back, screaming things out of joy under the cherry-blossoms, going full speed ahead. Even if it is summer, she can still recall their pink embrace like it was yesterday. She loves the cherry blossoms even when they’re not in bloom. Some people think she’s weird, but Takami Chika couldn’t care less.

She doesn’t remember who is driving the bike. Maybe a friend, maybe one of her sisters. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that she could get her weekly ride under the cherry blossoms like always, even if her bike was busted. She thanks that person in silence and wishes they could go on like this forever, seeing the cherry blossoms bloom over and over again. There’s something about their shade of pink that makes Chika’s heart race. There’s something about the cherry blossoms that feels like a miracle.

(Yes, a miracle indeed.)

Riko doesn’t know why she buys that old orange bike from her classmate. She just does. She doesn’t even like orange, but there’s nothing to do. That day, she takes the long way home.

There aren’t many calm places around her apartment, but the path that goes under the cherry blossoms is a place Riko likes a lot. She always goes there, even when the cherry blossoms aren’t in bloom. She likes it there. Maybe because of her last name or because that exact shade of pink is her favorite color, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t care, either. She enjoys that little piece of calm nature she can find in that 24/7 busy city.

Riko rides her bike and doesn’t stop pedaling, even when she’s going so fast she starts to feel her heart throb. She likes that; she wants it to throb even harder.

This is the nearest I’ll ever get to that feeling I’m looking for, Riko thinks. That thought fills her eyes with tears. She’s still pedaling and there’s half road ahead. She pedals even harder. She doesn’t want to stop and it feels like she’s going to take off.

Then, she hears her. Someone screaming things out of joy. Someone laughing and going crazy over the yet-to-bloom cherry blossoms. Someone who feels exactly the way Riko does. Riko doesn’t look around to see that person, but closes her eyes and screams too. She joins her and they laugh and go off together. There’s kind of a connection, a memory of something that never happened.

Tears fall down Riko’s cheeks. Once she reaches her place, everything is over.

(Replay it, will you?)

* * *

 

There is a summer Takami Chika feels alone. She’s fourteen and lanky and lonely. All of her friends are doing stuff and her family won’t let her work at the inn because she almost broke all their dishes in one go. They kicked her out and told her to get lost (her sister did, actually), for at least a day. Chika thinks she can see the positive side of things, but truth is there is nothing to do. You is hanging out with her dad and Kanan helping in the store. So she walks around with no direction nor plans, whistling whatever song comes to her mind.

Chika is not used to feeling alone. She likes to be surrounded by people; she likes to spend time with her loved ones. And now, sitting under a leafy tree (maybe the tree she fell off years ago), she thinks about nothing. But, to be honest, this is not the first time she feels lonely. Sometimes, at school, even if she’s surrounded by people, even people she likes, she feels like there is something missing from her. She doesn’t want to sound clichéd and for people to think she’s lame, but she feels as if her heart is a puzzle and there is a missing piece.

It’s just a piece, she tries to convince herself. Just one.

But it feels like a whole lot more.

She lies over the grass sleepily and wonders if there is anyone who can understand her confusing and contradicting feelings.

(And there is, surrounded by the tallest buildings.)

Riko Sakurauchi can’t say she feels alone because she’s never felt with people. She feels like always— a bit lost and kinda awkward, always far away, in a distant place when it comes to where her heart is. She thinks Tokyo isn’t for her and wants to leave. Tokyo is too crowded and she dreams of a place small and peaceful, a place near the sea, the place where her heart truly is—

She also reads tons of manga and hopes to find romance one day. When she goes to the manga store and buys a new volume of the new series she’s reading she sometimes sees couples and sighs. I cannot connect with anybody, she thinks. If there is a red string of fate, mine leads to nowhere. With a red string of fate leading to nowhere and a heart that is far away from her, Riko walks around the city feeling like an empty body searching for a soul.

Her days are all the same and she wishes her life could be a little bit more exciting. She wonders, looking at the sky, if she’ll ever find somebody who makes her eyes shine and heart skip a beat.

(And there is, near the sea.)

* * *

 

A connection, a sudden déjà-vu. Sakurauchi Riko sees Takami Chika and she feels like they’ve met before. She doesn’t know where, but she knows it was summer when she saw her for the first time.

She thinks a lot and her dreams aren’t helping, being more confusing than ever. She can’t seem to remember when she saw Chika for the first time, and it’s driving her mad. She writes, she composes, she meditates and nothing can seem to take her to the place where she saw Chika for the first time. She’s going crazy and doesn’t know why she wants to know that so badly.

That until Chika and her go on a stroll.

“Look! There’s that old tree. When I was a kid—”

“You fell from it, right?”

“Yeah but—”

“You broke your arm, twisted your ankle and bruised your knees.”

“Riko-chan?”

It’s too late when Riko notices what she said. She could just hear herself talking, but she doesn’t know where those words came from.

“Riko-chan, you alright?”

And for some reason, Riko starts to cry.

* * *

 

“Somewhere in time, that’s when I met you.” Riko says, faintly. She’s lying on her bed and Chika’s by her side. She said she wanted to lie down a bit, after what happened.

“Somewhere in-in time?” Chika seems confused and bedazzled, unexpectedly. Riko wishes she could talk but her feelings are overwhelming. Somewhere in time, once, she and Chika crossed paths, but not only that— there is something about their connection, the way they can just see through the other. There is something about their ways with the other that makes Riko wonder if they are soul mates or something of that sort. And that thought makes her heart ache. She doesn’t know why. Shouldn’t her heart jump out of joy at the thought of the person she loves being her soul mate? Why does she feel this pain? Why does she feel like something doesn’t add up? Riko’s mind races through questions and she just wants to shut it closed for a second. She clears her throat.

“I—” Riko’s words get tangled in her mouth and she can’t talk. Chika holds her hands. She looks at them. They have some scars from that accident she’d had. The accident she now doesn’t remember. “The same summer you fell, I had an accident. I can’t remember what it was—” She stops, as if she’s waiting for Chika to say what the accident was all about. She doesn’t.

“I— Riko-chan, I’m sorry I can’t see it.” She says. Chika looks genuinely sad and Riko smiles at her because her eyes are teary, as teary as hers.

“Don’t worry.”

* * *

 

Time goes by. Riko still seems to remember things she shouldn’t and sometimes acts as if she was with them the whole time, living there. Yet no one finds it weird and they try to help Riko find an answer. After a short while they realize there is nothing much to do. They end up as clueless or even more, looking for answers to questions they can’t even word.

“I wish… I wish I was raised here.”

“Don’t say that, Riko-chan.”

“Why? It’s what I feel. If I were from here… Things would be different.”

“And why is different good, Riko-chan? I met you in the right moment— we met in the right moment. When life looked the darkest, you were my light. Don’t you like it this way?”

Riko sighs. She looks at the sun setting and wishes, just prays she could change the past she dreams about so much. Thinking about her past and then the past she could’ve had there makes her heart drown in melancholy. She holds Chika’s hand in search of comfort and finds warmth in her love. If she were to start believing in the red string of fate, she thinks, she knows where hers would end up on.

“Yeah, I do.” And even though it’s almost a lie, Riko smiles.

* * *

 

One day Chika bursts into her house at five am. She’s ecstatic and shining more than ever. She starts screaming as soon as Riko opens her eyes. She was dreaming of something different, a memory she had never seen before. A memory in which she’s six again, but she’s in Uchiura. Her hands are covered in bandages and she sees Chika, whose arm is in a cast and whatnot. Riko reaches for her, and just when she’s about to touch her—

“The fallboard, Riko-chan! It fell on your fingers! It was more embarrassing than that, actually, because you—" And Riko says nothing, interrupting her with a kiss. Their first kiss. Then, there’s nothing. Just cherry blossoms and summers that look like b-class movies.

And yet, everything seems to be in its rightful place.

* * *

 

Those times when they thought it’d be okay. Those times when dreams came true just with the bat of an eye and a wish upon a star. Times when things were easy because you didn’t want them to be hard. Times when they played games no one would ever understand and climbed up all the trees they could climb because that was what they liked to do.

“Look, Chika-chan! Isn’t that Kobayashi-sensei?”

“Yeah, kinda looks like her!”

“Then— Chika-chan!”

Chika broke her arm that summer. She was sad, yes, but she didn’t mind it that much. She had a new neighbor, and since her fingers were all messed up, they could waste their summers together. Or so Chika thought.

“I’m Takami Chika, nice to meet you!”

And there’s something familiar in those tingling eyes.

“I’m-I’m Sakurauchi Ri-Riko. Nice to me-meet you, too.”

And summer starts like that. Meeting someone whose antics are familiar but not enough to tell why. And even though Riko hates summer, she now feels like loving it, at least this time. Because everything seems to be in its rightful place, for once.

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys! this is my first time writing something like this and i had so so much fun! this might be clichéd or bad since it's my first time but i'll practice a ton to get better! thanks for reading, i hope you all liked it! take care and remember to smile o7 see you orz
> 
> (ps: i got the idea for this fic thanks to inio asano's works (which is more than incredible, so do check his works out) and the title is from ioi's amazing song, which had to do with the fic, which was not on purpose in the beggining lol)


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